Clarifying The Language And Misinformation (Hour 2)

I need to laugh.

Welcome back to Civic Media Mornings.

I'm your guest host today.

My name is Dan Schaefer.

I am the political editor here at Civic Media and the founder of a publication called The Recombobulation Area.

And for me, it's discombobulating in the morning.

So I'm glad I'm here to recombobulate with you, Greg Bach.

And we're joined by another segment by our guest, Dan Hagen of WJFW.

Fellows, thanks for being here.

Of course.

Great to be here.

A big recombobulation area fan.

And now I know about that area of the Milwaukee airport.

Thanks to

you.

That's right.

And

now

I get a lot of people.

This is one of my favorite things about about running the recombobulation area is that people actually take time out of their busy travel schedule to stand in front of that sign at the Milwaukee airport after they put their shoes back on and get through the get through the security line and take a picture and send it to me.

And I think that's pretty amazing.

That is nice.

Not me.

I got TSA pre-check.

So I'm fine.

I don't have to wait for anybody.

That's why you are, you're always so discombobulated,

Greg.

That's true.

That's very true.

That's very true.

So Mr. Hagen, you were, you were telling us before the break here that you had a busy weekend.

Interested to hear about it.

Tell me what's going on.

That's right.

The largest North American ski race takes place in Northern Wisconsin.

It's called the American Berker Binder.

It runs from Cable, Wisconsin to Hayward, Wisconsin.

It's 50 kilometers, more than 10,000 skiers compete every single year.

And that includes myself and my father.

My father's done it 28 times.

Wow.

And I'm doing for my 11th over the weekend.

Going into the race, I was 0 and 10 when it comes to competing against my daddies beat me every single time.

Um, he's a beast.

I don't know if the athleticism skips a generation.

But anyway, I did it this weekend and I did finally beat him.

So I beat him by good, uh, 15 minutes.

Thank you.

Three hours and 10 minutes to finish.

And, uh, man, it's, it's my favorite day of the year.

And, uh, a lot of people there celebrating.

So it was an absolutely, uh,

Great weekend.

What's your top speed when you're just treading along there?

Because you said you did it.

How you did 50 kilometers and how long

in three hours and 10 minutes.

You know, that's like 34 miles, 32 miles.

A lot of it is uphill.

Not only.

I see both ways on

the way to school.

Is that, uh, yeah.

Right.

I mean, the thing is, is yeah, it's kind of, you definitely gain more elevation than you, uh, go down.

Sure.

But that's part of the, that's part of the challenge, but it's a huge historical thing up in Northern Wisconsin.

There's people who've done it 47 times, you know, so it really has a cult following.

I had a coworker who did it every year, every year.

And he goes, you know, I'm going to do the Berkebeiner.

I'm like, I don't know what those words mean.

and that just sounds like he just babbled

out some syllables.

He's like,

okay, cool.

But every year he'd come back and look within a week or two, he would have a framed his, his, his, you know, penny,

whatever it's called.

His numbers.

Yeah.

He framed him.

He brought him to the office and I'm like, wow, you're, you're like decades older than me and you're doing that every year.

And he's like, and every year he'd say the same thing.

That's my last one.

I can't, I can't do this.

Every year you go right back up and do it.

Well, that's part of the tradition for these things,

right?

It's

just saying that it's going to be your last one.

Did your father accept a defeat gracefully or was he

do you call like stolen or

what

outwardly did?

Yeah.

So he's, I mean, man, he's 66.

So it's about time I beat him.

So I keep trying to tell him that like you did better than 99% of 66 year olds who couldn't do this, right?

So how dare your son.

of his years beat you finally.

Well, congratulations on your victory, sir.

Yeah, thank you.

It was a great race.

Going to do it next year for sure.

I'm aiming for 20.

So once you do 20, you get a purple bib.

And that's it, I guess.

All right.

It's those types of like little memento type things that can be end up being like your most important thing that you own

though, you know It's like those

types of things

actually

like if like if you win a chili cookoff and you get that could you get that trophy like that's your most prized possession It's like something like that, you know

You're listening to Civic Media Mornings.

That was our guest, Dan Hagen, who is joining us to talk about his experience in the Burkabiner.

Coming up after the next break here, we're going to be joined by Kate Duffy of Motherhood for Good.

We're going to talk about a whole bunch of things that she has been up to and working on and some of the stuff that's bouncing around the discourse.

uh, here in the state of Wisconsin.

So excited to, uh, cited to talk to my friend, Kate, uh, coming up after the next break here as well.

Um, Greg, did we have some weather reports to bring to the broadcast here?

I have two very important weather reports today.

First of all, unfortunately, uh, Brittany Merleau could not be here today, but she did send along her, her, her thoughts, her notes and her ideas on the weather.

And it goes like this.

Highs today will hit the low to mid forties, sunny, then overnight, a winter.

wintery mix moves in bringing rain freezing rain in some snow light light ice accumulations are likely in Central Wisconsin and the Fox Valley possible statewide though so a slippery commute tomorrow morning around one to two inches of snow could pile up near Marathon County area so that is the that is the Brittany Merlot forecast for today and tomorrow but we also have

Rob from Tigerton saying, good morning from Tigerton.

We have clear skies and 33 degrees.

Yesterday, Tigerton had a high of 53 degrees and the snow cover really went down, got bare grounds in open areas.

In the Tigerton area, logging trucks have been busy hauling logs out of the woods before weight limits go up on most county town roads in the rural area.

And he also said, here comes the sun is my all time favorite Beatles song of all time.

Thank you so much.

for getting in touch with us.

We love hearing from Robin Tigerton, knowing the weather report.

And good to know you're a good, you're a great Beatles fan.

So thanks so much, Rob, for reaching out.

And if you have very specific stories to share about the weather in your town, just like, uh, like our friend, Robin Tigerton, you know, add it to the live stream, send us a text, give us a call.

855-752-4842 is the line for that.

We've got Dan Hagen from WJFW joining us for this segment.

He was talking about his experience at the Berkabiner.

Dan, what else is going on in Northwoods?

Any big stories that you've been working on over the last few days here?

I may disappoint you with this.

It's not really a big news story.

However, I'm fearful of a lawsuit in front of my home.

Because of the ice conditions, right?

Is this a thing?

This is my first winter as a homeowner The idea is anyone could walk in front of my home where the sidewalk is really ice covered after yesterday's warm-up and last night's freeze Should I be fearful of my livelihood?

I would say get yourself to an ace or a local hardware store get yourself some deep freeze ice lay it down pet friendly

Make sure it's pet friendly because people walk on their dogs.

You don't want the dogs looking up the, but salted up now, salted up right now.

Cause that way you salt it up.

You're good to go.

If someone slips and fall, you can be like, Hey, I salted, I salted, but if you're not salting, then.

Yeah, the pet friendly salt is actually pretty important too.

Because when I walk my dog around my neighborhood, there's one particular place in my neighborhood that puts more rock salt down than would ever possibly be needed, that put more in like one day than you would need for the whole winter.

And so I always, when I have to avoid that part of my neighborhood now when I'm walking my dog, because she will just have to hop around on two legs.

because it bothers her so much.

Yeah, you don't want to make sure that if it gets in those pads, it can be very irritating.

But yeah, Dan, I would say get yourself to a hardware store this morning.

Get yourself some good pet friendly salt.

Get it down.

Don't use too much.

You only need like a cup or two, depending on how much sidewalk you have.

But I would do that now versus later, just for your own peace of mind and for other people as well.

You want to be a good neighbor, Dan.

Yeah, I suppose but won't this it'll salt and then it'll melt today and then the water will just wash away and then it'll come back It's just a cycle.

Is that is that explanation gonna hold up in court Dan?

Oh You're gonna you're gonna travel up here aren't you Greg?

I'm just here's your

advocate of better of better home living.

That's what I am my friend.

That's what I am

Tony on the live

stream set says salt or a lawyer either

works.

Like don't know a lawyer.

So

it's like, I guess it's going to have to be the salt then.

There you go.

There you go.

Um, I figured Dan was working on a story that says local, local anchor beats father at historic

grace.

Yeah.

Can you

bring that into the

WJFW broadcast at all to just, to really rub it

in?

I spent plenty of time.

You know, it's funny when people come up to me, they always talk to me about the skiing, never like one of the stories.

So I think it's good to intersperse some kind of, some anecdotes in there and keep people interested.

Nice.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So once again, after the break here, we're going to be joined by Kate Duffy of Motherhood for Good.

Very excited to be talking to her.

It was actually a couple of years ago that I got to know her a little bit because we were both working on certain projects related to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

And we both had our work promoted by none other than Julie Louis-Dreyfus.

So, yeah.

Wow.

Pretty wild.

Pretty wild.

I got, wow, I got famous people already.

I got Dan from the TV.

I got Dan Hagen, our Dan Schaefer on the radio and Julie Dreyfus knows him.

I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm stuck.

I'm stuck studded.

You know, do you guys know Seinfeld at all?

Not personally.

He stopped calling me years ago.

Yeah.

But you know, when we're talking about the purple, can you see my

eyes rolling on the live stream back on that one, Greg?

All right.

Sorry, Dan, continue.

But maybe think of a Seinfeld episode where Elaine is trying to get like a sub and she has this punch card and she's like going to be a captain sub.

Like if she gets help, it's like completely meaningless.

Lane is one of the all-time great characters.

Whenever you can make a Seinfeld reference, I feel like you should do that.

But Dan Hagen, thank you so much for joining us today.

We really appreciate you coming by.

Thanks for sharing your story about the Berkey.

And we'll see you next Tuesday.

Sounds good.

So we're ready now.

Thanks

for joining

us, buddy.

Thanks so much.

All right.

And once again, we will be joined by Kate Duffy from mother good motherhood for good after the break here.

If you have any, if you'd like to join the conversation, the number to call or text is 855-752-4842.

Also join us on the live stream on YouTube and the platform formerly known as Twitter.com.

It takes me so long to change this.

to call something, something by its new name.

I still, I'm still calling it Miller Park.

I'm still calling it Altera coffee.

Like it takes me a really long time.

So I'm really not going to be calling it X anytime soon.

Wow.

You are just, you're just digging deeper into grandpa old man.

Like

I'm back in my day was Altera coffee and it was delicious.

And it was

Greg.

All right.

All

right.

All right.

Stick with us here on civic media mornings.

We'll be right

back.

you

Welcome

back to Civic Media Mornings.

My name is Dan Schaefer.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

If you'd like to join the conversation we're having here on Civic Media Mornings, give us a call.

Shoot us a text 855-752-48.

for two, and we are thrilled to be joined by our guest today.

We have Kate Duffy from Motherhood for Good joining us.

Kate, thank you so much for joining us here on Civic Media Mornings.

Thank you for having me.

Good morning.

I was on with Dr. Lyle a while ago, and it was very early, so this time I've had a cup of coffee.

Ready to go live.

Are you like, so I was talking to Greg about this early in the show.

I am not a morning person.

So being up and live on the radio in the six o'clock hour is not exactly my comfort zone.

So, but I'm trying something new and we're recombobulating and we're, we're making it work.

But are you also challenged in the morning challenged?

Like I am.

Historically, I have been extremely challenged in the morning, although, you know, becoming a parent changes you.

I'm able to function very early in the morning, but I wouldn't say I'm like, you know, run in full steam ahead until

until the sun comes up at least,

but the sun is up.

Right.

As a parent, my kids have forced me to be more of a morning person, but it's different like being live on the radio than it is just like pouring a bowl of honey nut

cheerios.

The words have to word, you know.

Yeah, exactly

those sentences together.

Exactly.

And I'm occasionally doing that today as your as your guest host on Civic Media Morning.

So, Kate, you're up to all sorts of stuff these days.

You seem extraordinarily busy.

So tell me what you've been working on lately.

Well, just, you know, trying to make sense of the news coming at us, both, you know, from the Capitol here in

Madison and Washington DC for our community every day and you know every day is a new adventure.

So trying to keep people updated on that and then you know from things we're pushing perspective been pushing really hard on the postpartum Medicaid extension from a Wisconsin perspective that you know has enough cosponsors to pass and has now for several years and is being blocked by our assembly speaker.

What else is going on there?

Let's talk about that one for a minute because I think that we'll talk about that and we'll talk about, you know, another issue that's been in the news relating to parenting, I guess.

But the issue of the Medicaid expansion for new moms.

So Wisconsin is about to become the only state really, literally the only state that has not.

expanded Medicaid for new moms.

And as Emily Cephalos wrote in a piece at the Reconbibulation Area just a couple weeks ago, 40% of births in Wisconsin are with people who are on Medicaid.

So this really affects a tremendous amount of people.

And there's a bill in the state legislature in the state Senate, I believe it has pretty overwhelming bipartisan support.

You spoke at one of the committee hearings for that bill in the State Senate, did you not?

I did, yeah.

It has, I would say, unprecedented bipartisan support.

For

Wisconsin.

Yeah, for our legislature.

And yeah, so it was in the Senate Committee on Health two weeks ago, and I did go and testify, which was a really interesting experience for me because there were like

groups and lobbyists there and people everybody spoke in favor of it and I like it was not only like physicians and people from the insurance industry it was also people like from a Catholic Association from pro-life associations like everybody

across the political spectrum was really actually interesting for me to see in person all this support everybody behind one thing because we just don't see that very often these days.

Really don't.

And even speaking in front of the committee the majority of them are Republicans and they were very kind and receptive and and verbally supportive as well which also was just like interesting for me to see.

They were they were great and very supportive of it and it actually last week it did they voted unanimously to pass it out of the health committee So it is going to continue to move forward through the Senate And we still just can't even get a hearing on it in the committee in the assembly

And it has bipartisan support in the assembly in addition to the Senate as well And I think it's important to recognize that like even if you have a bill that's going to pass the Senate even if you have a bill that's going to have bipartisan support

It is up to leadership to decide whether that bill makes it to a vote or not.

And the leader in the assembly is one Robin Voss, and he's pretty dug in on this issue.

this and many other issues.

But he's very dug in on this.

And he is extraordinarily opposed to even having a conversation about this.

That's part of what really bothers me sometimes.

You go back to the gavel in gavel outs that Robin Voss would have as assembly speaker with Tony Evers and things like that.

It's not even that he opposes it.

It's just that he doesn't even want to have the conversation sometimes, right?

Yeah, he doesn't want to allow people to speak on it.

Even, you know, my representative is a Republican and I've called his office and he's very in support of it.

You know, so he's not even letting these representatives represent the people, their constituents in the assembly on the floor.

He's not even letting anybody talk about it, which is just not obviously how things are supposed to work.

And it's really frustrating and women are dying.

You know, this is

There's one thing to be opposed to continued access to Medicaid, which is something I don't understand, but I can see why Republicans and fiscal conservatives are opposed to it.

But this has been adopted in 48 states, like Texas,

Florida.

The next state to adopt it is going to be those woke libs in Arkansas with Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who just said at a press conference that she'd be supporting this in their state.

I mean, if we're behind Sarah, how could be Sanders?

Like if we can't even get on the same page as her about something, then I don't know.

I don't know what's going to change his mind.

Yeah, it's a tough one.

It seems

like who's listening and tell him to bring it to push it forward.

Interesting.

You have been rallying people to call his office and we're going to be talking about that.

And it seems like the Republicans might want to focus.

on something else when it comes to parenting, I guess, to a certain extent.

And we'll talk about that a little bit right after the break here.

You are listening to Civic Media Mornings.

I'm your guest host, Dan Schaefer.

We're joined by Kate Duffy from Motherhood for Good, and we'll be right back.

Welcome back to civic media mornings.

My name is Dan Schaefer.

I am your guest host this morning.

Thank you so much for joining us.

You can join the conversation by giving us a call, shooting us a text at 855-752-4842.

The Wisconsin Badgers continue Big 10 conference play this evening, hosting the Washington Huskies tonight in Madison.

You can listen to the Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball season all men's basketball all season long on several civic media stations W F H R in Wisconsin Rapids W R C E in Richland Center W R J N here in Racine and Kenosha and on W L A K and Amory.

or on the civic media app.

Greg, I was waiting for you there on the Amory drop.

Oh, there it is.

There it is.

I don't get to be a part of those as much when I'm guesting with you guys on mat and air on air.

So I really wanted to set you up there, but we got it.

We're recon-bobulated.

You're always with us.

That's good.

We're joined here in this segment by Kate Duffy of motherhood for good.

Kate, thank you again for joining us here on civic media mornings.

Of course.

Happy to be here.

Good morning, everyone.

And so one of the things that we wanted to talk about on the show today, and I was going to talk about this with Dr. Kristin Lierly, because she is a doctor and has expertise in this field.

But there is this kind of outsized controversy that is broiling on the interwebs when it comes to a certain language from Tony Evers proposed.

budget.

So there's a couple things here that I want to kind of walk through with you, Kate, as we get into this issue.

So I saw the news on Friday come through, and I'm going to read the Journal Sentinel headline for this, is Republican group criticizes Governor Tony Evers after woman changed in bill to quote, inseminated person.

And I was like, all right, what is this?

Who is even asking for this?

What's going on here?

Because I, you know, I

Obviously, I'm a left of center person.

I'm okay with changing, you know, having conversations about being more inclusive language, but some of it can be a little bit irritating from time to time.

And so my initial reaction was like, okay, what even is going on here?

Who is even asking for this?

And then I read the bill and it's pretty much just clarifying language in a portion.

of state statutes regarding artificial insemination and other fertility treatments like IVF that says if a lesbian couple has a baby by IVF, they're not both pregnant, but are both mothers.

And there's also some other factors here that applies to other legal things that create a legal uncertainty for people who might not be married or are same-sex couples.

or are single parents looking for fertility treatments or IVF or surrogacy or what have you.

So Kate, when you heard this, what was your initial reaction and what have you been thinking about this as it's continued to unfold?

Well, I think it's important to note just how you explained it.

You saw the article and you're like, okay, what's going on?

I think that's a great lesson for everybody.

these days with like, that is your misinformation radar, right?

If you read something and it like seems so outrageous that you're like, what is going on here?

That's usually a good sign to like look into it further and not just like share immediately that like your outrage said that because I had the same reaction.

I'm like, what's going on?

And I looked it up and you know, they were talking about it as like, he put this bill like,

to change mother to inseminated person and I'm

like an as an across-the-board type thing that's the way I think Republicans are seemingly characterizing this as is as if it's some sort of like across-the-board change that we don't use the word woman in Wisconsin anymore which is it's just a very specific statute that has to do with

Fertility treatments.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I like you, I, you know, I pulled up the bill.

It is a bill that is 1917 pages long, right?

And they

are

talking about one paragraph and I'm looking, once you start reading it and you read the text kind of leading up to it, and I'm not even a lawyer and some of it is like a little bit confusing, but it's clear that they are talking about.

fertility treatments and artificial insemination and Paternity rights and he's just changing the language because there's many different scenarios now of when you have kids and it's trying to clarify You know paternity of children for for the courts.

So there's more like legal clarification there.

I mean husband is also

crossed out and it says spouse so I think they're just trying to make it so it just reaches a broader audience because yeah there's same-sex couples that have babies there's IVF people can have babies alone um with sperm donors uh there's a variety of ways and so you know they've taken something that fits their narrative and they've run with it and while what they're saying is true there's so much other context and nuance that really adds to it and

it's just taken off like wildfire.

It's all over the internet.

I follow a lot of like conservative women influencers too and they have also picked it up and are talking about it and are outraged.

And you know, I understand what he was doing for sure, but also we all understand the current climate, right?

And we know the...

We know the games that are played.

We know what's going to happen.

Would it have killed him or the team who helped do this to just write mother and inseminated person?

You know, just like that crossing out of the word mother is he didn't mean anything by it, but of course it got picked up that way.

Yeah, and you know the same section also crosses out the word husband and replaces it with spouse So it's just kind of this larger effort to have I guess more gender neutral terms or more inclusive terminology to and again I think there's a fair argument to be made That there are better ways to incorporate these changes in the legalese of state statutes than to go with you know some sort of general neutral terminology across the board, but also

I'm getting the sense that that's not really what this is about, right?

This isn't really about the terminology that, you know, how best to characterize things to reflect the reality of same-sex parents or people who are not married and having kids and whatever.

I'm getting the sense that that's not actually what this is about.

And what this is actually about is the right glomming on to some sort of

thing that can appear is just like, oh, we're just going to go after the woke lives on this one.

And I don't really think it is an issue that

I really don't think this is a very big deal, but the conservatives are gonna make a big deal.

Some of the people advertising in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race have already cut ads about this since last Friday when this was kind of broke as a story late Friday afternoon.

So again, and it makes me think of this issue that when I was reporting a story last year, I was talking to Gordon Hintz, who's now running for Winnebago County Executive, former minority leader.

the state of Wisconsin Democratic minority leader.

And he said, you know, he was talking about something else relating to the campaign.

And he had this line that stuck with me where he's just like, it's your classic democratic issue.

Whereas if it takes three sentences to explain, you've already lost.

And that just kind of feels like what this is.

Whereas just like, even if Evers is going to push back, and we saw that, he was at a press event in Green Bay yesterday, and he talked about how he was PO'd, you know, that's a lower level on the Evers anger scale than what we can sometimes get.

But, you know, it's, if you're taking the three sentences to explain this, you're kind of already losing.

And that's the frustration with these types of mis-

information campaigns that Republicans will throw at you here with things like this.

Yeah.

I mean, perception is everything, right?

We've certainly learned that it's not really what is fully true, but it's what people believe to be true.

And the fact that they've gotten everybody talking about this, now people are going to think that Evers doesn't really support using the words women or mother, which is just crazy.

You know, I was looking into it.

He says it all the time, you know, and he was just talking about moms at

the

budget and, you know,

all of this fake outrage over this.

I'm like, okay, but Evers is actually really trying to protect mothers in Wisconsin by passing this Medicaid expansion because women are dying.

But of course that's not what we're talking about because yeah, there's more nuance and explanation necessary there.

And you know, I looked at the bill and like searched the word mother.

It's in the bill plenty of other times.

But yeah, they took it in Ramah that I am surprised that Shimmel

responded right away, playing into the whole culture wars of it all.

And he's like, a woman is a woman and a man is man.

I don't even think Evers was trying to just like be more gender inclusive here for, for people's feelings.

I think he was literally doing it to make things easier in family court.

Yeah.

Um, and so.

I don't know if I was like advising Susan Crawford's campaign which I'm not and I know they've asked her for a statement on this and she probably shouldn't respond because it's not really worth it but I'm like the fact that her opponent who's trying to be on the Supreme Court immediately played into this and couldn't like he's supposed to be a lawyer right he couldn't see that that was probably there was more to the story I think that is is telling of him.

Yeah, you're listening to Civic Media Mornings.

I'm your guest host today.

My name is Dan Schaefer.

I'm the political editor here at Civic Media, as well as the founder of the weekly opinion column and online publication called the Reconbobulation Area.

Hey, go subscribe to that one while you're here.

And also, we are joined by Kate Duffy of Motherhood for Good, and you should subscribe to her sub-stack as well, because Motherhood for Good is also on sub-stack now, which I was excited to see, and now I'm always excited to see it when it hits my inbox.

Trying to try to be more regular about that one.

So yes, definitely

reach in people where they are, right?

So we were talking about this whole ridiculous drummed up controversy about the budget language regarding

Insemitated person versus woman, you know, it's the right is making it seem like there is some sort of across the board change that is happening.

Nope, it's not what's happening.

It's a specific statute that has to do with fertility treatments.

I was excited to have

Kristen Lierly joined to talk about this and offer some of her expertise on the issue.

And she was unfortunately unable to make the day because she got called away to an emergency C-section.

So I hope everything is going well there.

But one of the things that she sent me in the notes on this is that just talking about how this budget updates some archaic husband and wife terminology.

And she was telling me that

Because this is a legal document, the old terms are outdated and don't allow for unmarried or same-sex couples to

use some of these fertility treatments or use IVF or have some sort of situation going forward.

And she also mentioned that, ironically, Elon Musk has 13 kids with at least four women, some of whom are surrogates, all IVF, maybe some out of wedlock.

So if Elon Musk, I know he's weighing in on the Wisconsin Supreme Court rate race in a big way, maybe if he wants to move to Wisconsin, these changes would be suited

to what he's got going on in his own life, perhaps, I don't know.

Yeah, good point.

You know, party of family values, I think he's trying to move the needle on family values to be like, just procreate as many children as you can.

Yeah.

However you want.

So yeah, he should like this language.

Yeah, well, so look, if we are going to be a pro family state, and I think you and I both, as parents, we've talked about this in the past, we want,

policies in the state of Wisconsin to be better for families.

Freaking out about language in a bill like this is not going to help families.

What is going to help families is the type of advocacy work that you're working on.

about extending healthcare for new moms, something that every state, every state but Wisconsin is going to have this on the books by the end of the year.

Even that woke lib in Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is okay with moving this forward, but Robin Voss is not.

So are we really gonna be a pro family state?

Are we going to take care of new parents?

Are we going to take care of, are we going to allow more people to access IVF, to access fertility treatments?

Are we going to be a pro family state or not?

Or are we going to get bogged down in nonsense?

What do you think, Kate?

I would love to be a pro-family state, and I know Tony Evers would love to be a pro-family state, and many people, Republicans and Democrats.

You know, and I was looking back, he's been talking about this, you know, postpartum Medicaid extension since 2019.

I was

looking into it, and Governor Evers is always pushing for legislation that is going to help moms and families and women, and to just

take this little nugget out of this bill and say that he's trying to erase women and mothers is obscene.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, Kate Duffy of Motherhood for Good.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Civic Media Mornings.

Where can we find your work at Motherhood for Good?

Mostly on Instagram or Facebook at Motherhood for Good.

You can find us on our website, motherhoodforgood.com, Substack, you know, all the play.

I'm trying for Blue Sky, but you can find us everywhere.

All right.

Very good.

Well, thank you so much for joining us here on civic media mornings.

We've got one more segment to go after this one.

Greg Bach, we're almost done.

It's almost time for the sun to come up and everything else.

Well, we've been doing this in the middle of the night, right?

All right.

Well, thanks again, Kate.

And we will be right

back.

Welcome back to Civic Media Mornings.

I'm your guest host today.

My name is Dan Schaefer.

Thank you all so much for joining us.

Thank you to Greg Bach for keeping us, keeping us all recombobulated here on the board.

You know I will add that word in any conversation, in any opportunity.

Oh, I know.

It's

called

branding, baby.

It's called branding, baby.

And we are joined for one more.

segment here before I pass things off to the next host today.

We are joined by Chad Holmes, the host of the Chad Holmes show.

Chad, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, my pleasure.

Great to be with you, Dan.

And you're going to be hosting Civic Media Mornings tomorrow, I understand.

That is so early.

I know

it is so early.

Greg does it every day.

We were talking at the beginning of the show.

This is just, it's too early for people.

I'm not a morning person.

I don't know if you are, Chad.

Obviously you host the show on weekdays, eight to 10 a.m.

in Wausau, but six a.m.

is another beast.

I've done this in the past.

I've been in this business a long time and back, oh, probably about 25 years ago, I worked in Stevens Point and I did the morning show.

But back then,

We had this little satellite dish that was on the roof of our station.

And during these months of the year, often I would have to go up there at like, you know, 430 in the morning and clean off the snow because otherwise there'd be a lot of static on the programming.

And I do not like being up early, but the thing I hate even more is trying to climb up the ladder.

And at 4.30 in the morning, when it's about 10 below zero, and then the ladder itself would never get quite up to the edge of the building.

So at the end, I get to kind of throw my body on top of it, and then I would clean off the dish.

And then the hardest part was I would stand there for 10 minutes looking at the ladder and thinking, how am I going to get back on that ladder and get down?

At least I don't have to do that tomorrow morning, but I barely get here in time for the eight o'clock.

We'll see how we can do it tomorrow morning.

But

I'm

looking forward to it.

It'll be

fun.

Chad might be sleeping in the studio tonight.

You know, I thought about it.

I thought about sleeping here and just

waking it.

No, I don't think it would have been good for you, buddy.

I think you know what?

No,

no, it would not have been good.

No, Chad, what do you got planned for, for your show today and for

tomorrow?

And, uh, well, Greg, be ready.

I'll be sending you some information about tomorrow's show.

But actually, uh, tomorrow on this program, you know, I feel more pressure sitting in for the great pack, right?

Well, then I do even my own show.

But, uh, tomorrow morning, I got two segments that I want to kind of loosen it up.

And I don't know about you guys.

The last five weeks have been just incredibly stressful.

And from time to time, you want to try to step away from it.

I know we have plenty of time to talk about what's going on in terms of the political world, both within here and here in Wausau.

We got a mayor that is continuing to say he did nothing wrong when it came to the removal of the dropbox.

That story is continuing, which I'll be discussing a little bit here this morning because there's still some.

machinations going on within the the ethics committee here in the city of wassap but tomorrow actually i got a really nice little segment that we'll have tomorrow i'm going to be bringing in this afternoon because uh they're heading down to madison four girls wrestlers from wassap west who are going to the state tournament this weekend and it's a really fast growing sport here in the state of wisconsin and four really

incredible young ladies will be sitting around this table later this afternoon going to record something up that we will have tomorrow morning.

And then also we'll have a Jimmy Cusco come on in because tonight and actually these are some of my favorite weeks of the year because winter high school sports are going on tonight.

I've got a sectional semifinal hockey game.

I'm just glad it's not a road game or else I'll be getting home really, really late tonight and really, really ordinary tomorrow morning.

So at least it's here in Wausau, but it's a very exciting time with sectional hockey and girls basketball playoffs going underway and boys basketball brackets also have Jimmy Cusca on with us tomorrow as well.

And in addition, we'll, we'll.

talk about all the other interesting things going on around the area, state and the world.

I'm just hoping for spicy chat because there's nothing I love more in the morning than spicy chat homes.

You think you think I'm spicy at seven 50 in the morning.

Wait till you see me just after six o'clock.

And I'm not telling you any, I'm not telling you any lies here.

It's like

it's bringing, bringing some

extra spice.

We got the five alarm chili version.

of the chat home show happening on civic media mornings tomorrow,

depending on how long the game goes tonight and how well I sleep tonight.

I could be ornery in the morning, but I'm going to do my best to be really, really, uh, uh, as pleasant as the opening theme music to the program.

Tony and Tony in the live stream wants unfiltered chat.

No, we're good.

I'm looking forward to it.

It'll be a lot of fun with Greg and one day for the six o'clock show.

I think I can do

that.

That's, that's exactly what I said.

I'll help Mr. quite low out for, I'll do one day and it looks like we've survived here, Greg

Bach.

You've done a great job, Dan.

Seriously.

Good job, buddy.

This is good stuff.

We've had a fun time.

I've had fun.

I've

had

fun

too.

I got a little bit out of my comfort zone.

I'm, you know, I'm more comfortable as a night owl, but I can, I can, I can now say that I have hosted a morning show.

It's in the middle of the night here from six to eight AM.

Just don't ever say in front of radio people because I hosted it once.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Adorable.

Well, anyway, so thank you to everyone who has joined us for Civic Media Mornings today.

Thank you to our guests who have joined us as well, Dan Hagen, Kate Duffy, and Chad Holmes, who you can hear right up next in WXCO as host of the Chad Holmes show, and guest hosting tomorrow morning as well.

Thank you all once again for joining us, and a special thanks to my coworker, Mr. Greg Bach.

Oh, you're welcome, buddy.

Alright, stay tuned.

The Earl Ingram Show is next.

You are listening to Civic Media.